I am using RNA-seq data available at TCGA to call variants and through cross-checking with the curated MAF files provided by Broad Institute, it seems that there are a couple variants that either I'm not getting and some that they're not getting.
I was curious if there is available documentation that Broad Institute provides that records they're pipeline/workflow to understand why I'm getting different results.
1 answer
The metadata (SDRF/IDF) files should give information on the parameters and such used in the variant callers.
If you're comparing them to the curated MAFs, it's unsurprising that you'd be missing some variants. After all, not all genes are expressed, so you'll be unable to call variants in those.
The opposite problem (calls you're making not in the MAF) may be due to a host of factors, including sequencing artifacts or low-VAF calls that weren't readily detectable in the original DNA sequencing.
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